Tag: 3-5 High street

THE Fremantle Society committee has worked long and hard to put together the full page announcement in this week’s Fremantle Herald.

The full page advertisement in 50,000 newspapers seeks to engage the community in discussion about the direction Fremantle is going, given the tsunami of poor quality new buildings hitting our town.

The Fremantle Society is keen to see new developments and keen to see improved retail, commercial, and residential outcomes. But, not at the costof the very thing that attracts people here in the first place.

Standards must rise. Council must take responsibility. Damage to Fremantle so far is severe.

The full page ad quotes Fremantle Herald owner Andrew Smith, who, in a front page article in 2011, predicted that Fremantle was facing ‘a nightmare future’ because council had altered the town planning scheme to allow high rise, despite majority community opposition to those changes.

Democracy lost out, and the Fremantle Society wants the nightmare to be replaced by good planning and quality development. And, in some cases, the cap should be put back on the town planning scheme.

Nominations close today for positions on the Fremantle Society executive. If you have any questions please call president John Dowson on 9335 2113

Notre Dame 5 Storey Building

Notre Dame University submitted its plans for a 5 storey building in the West End just before Christmas, similarly to Fremantle Council, which has just launched the biggest set of plans in their history (King’s Square), right at Christmas time when few have time to digest such detail, let alone write submissions.

You are looking at a ‘poorly conceived and disrespectful’ proposal pictured below

A top Perth architect Jean-mic Perrine wrote on Freo’s View:

“The proposal by Notre Dame University is inappropriate, poorly conceived and disrespectful of a heritage precinct. What is sadder is that it has little original architectural merit and reminds me of the lazy days of the 70’s when this sort of sketch allowed monstrosity to mushroom in our historic precincts”.

Notre Dame is seeking to build the 5 storey building on a corner with one, two, and three storied buildings on the other corners, and on a large footprint. Five stories are not allowed under the scheme.

Notre Dame have been discussing this with council for a year. It appears that council and the university have not learnt any lessons from the impact of the university’s monoculture in the West End.

The monoculture caused by this very successful university when it crowded out existing pubs and businesses should not continue. The new building should be located OUTSIDE the West End in the Westgate Mall area perhaps, so that students have to permeate through Fremantle, and just maybe have to walk 4 minutes to one of their buildings – as happens in true university towns like Oxford and Cambridge.